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Author's Chapter Notes:
many thanks as always to my faithful reviewers. you really make my day.
Spike wrapped his arm closely around Buffy’s waist and nuzzled into her hair again. He would never get enough of the smell. That soft mixture of vanilla and jasmine could drive him crazy anytime. He needed her: both William and the demon needed her in ways he could never explain. She was his world.

Buffy looked up and smiled at her one true love. It had taken her years to admit it to herself and she had never been happier or more content. The lovers made their way slowly back to the Orb room as it had become known, to find Xander and Giles each cradling an Orb with others lined up on the table between them. The Immortal was going through the rest, seemingly putting them in order.

‘We’ve found them, Nikki and Kendra, and others with girls who died at Sunnydale. Morty is sorting out those he knows. Xander and I recognised some and put them in order,’ Giles explained quietly, pointing at a line of Orbs on a separate table between the two men.

Every one of the Orbs had the soul of a slayer in it. Each and every girl who had given her life to protect the world from untold evil, had been betrayed by the very people who were supposed to help and protect her. Now at least they knew. Buffy felt her heart harden even more against Travers and his evil.

‘We’ve only got a couple of hours until Travers breaks out of his confinement,’ Xander commented. ‘And we really don’t want a vindictive, revenge seeking warlock wandering around the place, now do we?’

‘Willow: is there any way of using magic to communicate with the souls, or find out who they all are, when they died or anything?’ Buffy asked the witch as she came into the room.

Willow thought about it for a couple of moments.

‘I don’t really want to go throwing magic at the Orbs until we’ve worked out what Travers has done. I’m not that stupid anymore.’ She shuddered at the memory of some of the more idiotic mistakes she’d made back in Sunnydale.

‘What we really need is a powerful medium or something, but I’ll look up spells to see if there’s any gentle ones we can use that won’t interfere or react with Travers,’ she added as she turned on her heels and went back out of the door.

Brother Roberto passed her on his way in carrying a huge tray filled with mugs of coffee and blood and a stack of pastries.

‘I thought you could all do with some sustenance; we have been working for hours. I use the term we very loosely as all I seem to have done is sit around and pass books to that lovely young witch. Not exactly what I expected when I think about fighting demons.’

‘It was always my job, but I’ve been promoted,’ laughed Xander. ‘I get to move books and actually look in them,’ he continued to explain as he helped himself to a doughnut and coffee and went back to looking through the Orbs.

Giles passed a cup of blood to Spike.

‘Roberto, how do you free souls in the church? Don’t you have some sort of ceremony?’

‘Exorcism. When we free souls lost to heaven, we can bless an area and perform an exorcism. But I don’t think that will help in this case. These souls aren’t lost in the traditional meaning, they have been stolen, hijacked, kidnapped and need to be freed.’

‘And led to safety,’ added a voice at the door. Marcus had arrived. ‘Someone has to lead them through to the next realm.’

‘That would be me,’ answered Dawn.

Buffy and Spike leapt to their feet at the same moment. The looks on their faces mirrored one another, both remembering Glory and the Tower.

‘No way, Niblet.’

‘I’m not losing you,’ added Buffy.

‘You two are doofeses…I don’t die when I open portals, that’s my job, what I was born for. We free the souls, I open the portal to a heavenly realm, we pass them onto a guide and Travers is no longer running on batteries. Then we let those demons with a slight problem with him discuss his behaviour all they want.’

Buffy looked at her younger sister/ daughter. ‘Discuss his behaviour?’ she questioned.

‘You prefer me to say rip him to bits and spit out the pieces? We’re talking master vampires here, master vampires whose mates have been upset. You won’t be able to clean up the pieces with a mop, and having met Charles and Marcus, I can just hear them asking me to open a gate to whatever hell dimension he gets sent to just so they can start again. He’s going to be like that Greek, tied to a rock and having his liver ripped out every day.’

‘Prometheus, luv,’ said Spike with a smile, showing off his classical education again. ‘His name was Prometheus and it was his punishment for stealing fire.’

‘Well whatever, but he’d be considered lucky compared to what our resident evil will do to him when they get the chance.’ Dawn added.

‘Too right.’ Spike added.

Buffy looked at the pair of them and then around the room. Giles felt sorry for her. Buffy was all fight but she had a gentle and loving heart. The thought of someone suffering forever in hell again because of her must be crippling Buffy.

‘It’s not up to us where he goes or what happens to him when he leaves this realm. He’ll stand before a higher judge, and have to answer for his crimes. All we’re going to do is remove the spell that keeps him here and free an ancient soul to return where it should be. It will NOT be your responsibility, Buffy, if he goes to hell.’

‘It wasn’t your fault last time Buffy, it won’t be this.’ Giles added.

‘Last time?’ whispered Xander to Spike. Spike was grateful that Buffy hadn’t heard him and mouthed ‘Angel’ in answer to the implied question.

‘Oh, right.’

Buffy looked around at her friends and tried to pull herself together. Banishing people to hell came with the territory.

‘Right,’ she said, changing the subject, ‘where are we with finding out how to free slayers souls from globes?’

‘No further, we thought that if they were in order we could free them either in the order they were taken or backwards, but neither seems to have worked. We can’t exorcise them because they aren’t lost, and when we do free them we need to open the doorway and let them into the heavenly realm. That’s Dawn’s job, but freeing them from the Orbs seems impossible.’

‘How did Willow free Angel’s soul when she caught it?’ Asked Spike.

‘I sent it to Angel’s body.’ Came the answer from the doorway as the red haired witch rejoined them.

‘So can’t you just let these souls out and then send them through the doorway to heaven?’

‘I never thought of something that simple. I could, we were all looking for something complicated and it could be that simple, just let them go free instead of aiming them for a host.’

Willow quickly gathered together the supplies she needed. Rachael and Xander helped and within minutes they had formed the circle. Giles placed Kendra’s Orb into the centre as Dawn used her athame to open a portal.

‘Heaven,’ she said and a bright light shone out across the room. It caught Spike and Marcus, causing Spike to start smouldering.

Marcus just smiled.

‘An advantage of being in The Covenant, we don’t burn in light.’ He explained to Spike again. ‘Not even heavenly light.’

Spike looked in awe at a master vampire bathed in heaven’s own light.
He hadn’t noticed a figure appear from the portal. Joyce had walked through the minute the gate opened. He caught a slight change in the air, could smell perfume that triggered his memory.

‘Hi baby, I see you got my letter,’ said a long remembered voice.

‘Mommy,’ whispered Buffy then screamed, ‘Mommy!’

Giles and Spike looked up in amazement to see the Slayer use her speed and strength to cover the distance between them as Joyce held open her arms to her eldest daughter and hugged her hard in front of everyone.
Dawn hurried across and the three of them became oblivious to everything else.

Willow hadn’t noticed a thing. She was using the last of her energy to free the soul from the Orb, calling Kendra by name, and suddenly she was standing before them inside the circle. Kendra, as proud as she had been in life.

All Willow had to do was call by them by name. The slayers couldn’t be freed by just any spell, but their names, their names had the power.

‘Tank you,’ she said to Willow in her gentle voice, ‘I have been in there for so long. I just want to get away. Tell Buffy she was right to doubt the council. We see all in those globes and I have learnt so much.’ She smiled at Xander. ‘I will always be glad I met you, and sir, you look very dashing now.’ Kendra blushed.

She turned to the blond vampire.

‘Spike: take care of Buffy, and Mr. Giles you may want to take notes with some of these slayers, they know a great deal.’ And with that she looked at Willow and nodded as the witch opened the circle she was working in and Kendra simply walked out and into the light.

‘One down, nine hundred and ninety nine to go; named ones first, then we work on the others.’ smiled Willow as she reached for the next globe.

Rachael burst through the half opened doorway. Her face flushed with excitement.

‘I know you guys said you didn’t want to be disturbed but I thought you might like to know that Travers sort of went faint and white for a second or two. We, and I use the word loosely, seem to be draining him.’





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